


Of Cautionary Tales

by RosesToPaint



Series: Family [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Child Abandonment, Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4958461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosesToPaint/pseuds/RosesToPaint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does it take for a mother to abandon her children? <br/>Part III of a series of snippets about a family that's not quite ... normal.<br/>Introduction: Caroline White</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Cautionary Tales

She had always been a particularly naive child. It was a trait she had inherited from her mother, as unlikely as it seemed now. But unlike her mother, it took far longer to beat it out of her.

Caroline had grown up as the only girl of the family. Far away from her uncle’s struggle with madness and each other, sheltered from her mother’s bitterness and her father’s melancholy, safely bracketed between her brothers, who themselves had not yet experienced heartbreak or smothered it with her laughter and happiness, she fell in love for the first time.

It was grand and it was terribly star-crossed, just like they said in her books. His name was Matthew. He was the baker’s son and when he had seen her for the first time when they were both seventeen his eyes had gotten big and round.

Her brother Joseph’s disapproval only made her more determined that he was the one for her; after all, love wasn’t real when you didn’t have to fight for it. Matt was completely taken with her, smiling adoringly at her grand ideas and promising a humble but steady life far away from her family if she married him. At nineteen they ran away.

 

Life was wonderful, full of hard but rewarding work and a tiny house with a tiny backyard that Matt dreamed of filling with children. The thought of children made her stomach churn nervously. She wanted them. After all, what happily ever after didn’t involve children?

She loved her husband and the thought of him carrying around little girls – or maybe little boys? – on his shoulders made her heart clench longingly.

But she had never told him of her Gift and the chance that her children would Inherit was very real. She agonized over it, until it simply happened. Caroline was pregnant, shocked and giddy, and so was her husband. Nine difficult months later she held Hannah in her arms for the first time and all doubt was blown out of the window.

Matt was her prince and now they had a little princess and there was no doubt in her mind that, no matter how vexed he might be with her, everything would turn out just fine. Weeks passed and Hannah seemed to be a perfectly Common child. Caroline allowed herself a little happy dance, relieved she did not quite have to give up her secret but resolving to tell him eventually.

After all, she could not forever keep such a secret from her husband, it just wasn’t right. And even if she herself was pretty unimpressive as far as Inheritors went, one of her children might very well start making it rain over her crib, the way grandma Oksana said her own father had.

When she was pregnant for a second time she took Matthew aside and told him.

A little nervous and apologetic she waited for him to get angry, so they could make up again. He did not say a word.

Minutes passed before he simply stood up and left.

It would be days before he returned.

 

Caroline clutched little Hannah to her chest, one hand on her swollen belly. Her lip smartened from early that evening and the first contractions made her breath hitch every so often. It wouldn’t be long now.

She would have to leave little Hannah; Joseph had already warned her she had no claim to the child. If she could not take her through her own power, the family would not assist her. Time with her precious girl was short. She would wait for the twins, Marie, and Erika, for as long as she could, silently hoping they would manifest _something_.

But she could not wait for long. It was only the pregnancy that kept Matt away from her, the thought that the children, _his_ children, might still be normal. She feared for her life after the birth. Little Hannah looked at her with big dark eyes. She was barely five and already she looked just like grandma Oksana.

Tiredly Caroline closed her eyes for a few precious moments of sleep. When she woke up she would tell Hannah another story. If she had to leave them all, maybe Hannah would take her place; tell Marie and Erica of princesses in faraway lands and their princes and their happily ever afters.


End file.
